For the sixth straight year, my wife, our eight-year-old
son and I made the trek from Stately Bootleg Manor to the coastal town of Del
Mar.As usual, I got down to gluttony as
soon as the gates opened.Mrs. Bootleg
and Jalen joined me for my first meal.She ordered what appeared to be a wholly mediocre Philly cheesesteak
(...and you can be judgmental when you've been to the mountaintop) while Jalen predictably went with
pizza.

Before long, Jalen was off attempting to
ride...every...ride.Twice.And, sometimes thrice.During the week, the crowds don't appear
until late afternoon, so my son had the run of the park.Until he tripped.

After yet another spin on one of the fair's spinniest
spinning rides, J was looking a little green.This was an unhealthy, unflattering green that heretofore had only been seen here.I
was just two meals into my fried food festivus and nearly undone by
someone else's stomach issues.

Thankfully, J felt better after two bottles of water and
an extended break from self-inflicted dizziness.Later, I bought him a brownie ice cream
sundae in a bowl and -- hands be damned -- he proceeded to eat it using only
his mouth.Here's a reasonable facsimile
of the instant replay for those of you who might've
missed it.

Now, step aside, son.Let dad show you how it's done.

Deep-Fried Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich
-- A few years back, in response to posts like the one you're currently
reading, I wrote about the handful of foods that even Iwouldn't eat.Now, I'm not saying I should've found a place on the list for peanut
butter, but it's one of those foods that I'm nitpickingly particular about. First,
it must be "creamy" not "crunchy".Are you familiar with that chalky-textured,
obscenely sweet stuff crammed inside a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup?That ain't peanut butter.And, most importantly, there IS a proper
peanut butter-to-jelly ratio inside of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

In what's become an annual tradition within this annual
tradition, the Chicken Charlie's stand was once again the spot for my first
meal of the morning.Breakfast would be
a battered up and deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich that's then
finished with an additional drizzle of jelly and a pinch of powdered sugar.

Unfortunately, the first bite didn't floor me.The ubiquitous fair batter that enveloped the
P, the B and the J was, as always, deliciously dense and decadent.But, simply put, there was too much peanut
butter.I admit to being in the minority
on this matter, but the perfect peanut butter and jelly
sandwich is made with one part peanut butter and [pause for melodramatic
effect] one-and-a-half to two parts jelly.[Pause for boos.]Wait, let me
finish.Without the added gelatinous
sweetness, the flavor profile is just a salt sammich with subtle sugar notes.

Here, the peanut butter overwhelmed the jelly and -- when
dropped into the deep fryer -- the PB became caramel-like in its consistency,
oozing all over the place.By the end of
this mess, all I could taste was hot, runny peanut butter -- not unlike those
abominable "natural" peanut butters that require stirring before
spreading.(And, if you peanut butter
believers are going to boo anything, it should be that.)Grade 1.5 (out of 5)

Meat Lover's Hot Dog on a Stick -- With
no end in sight to America's hyperbolic bacon fad, it's high time we
collectively decided on which group is more annoying: the over-the-top
pro-bacon crowd who show their support with the 'caps lock' key on and an extra
helping of exclamation points or the hilariously haughty bacon traditionalists
who recoil with horror at the sight of bacon anywhere beyond a mediocre
chain-restaurant cheeseburger or the breakfast table.Let's call it a "push" and cut to
the chase -- a bacon-wrapped hot dog should work...but,
here, it doesn't.

"Salty"
is not a strong enough adjective for this.I'd say it's appropriate to use salty's full name.Hell, my first bite felt like a foreign
object had been flung at my face.The flavors seemed to even out by the end -- either that or my palate had
tapped out -- but, curiously, the hot dog might've been more than just bacon's
unwilling sodium accomplice as it was ridiculously salty on its own.Still, this was a MUCH higher quality hot dog
than the fair usually produces with a nice snap and better-than-acceptable
texture.The beer-battered bacon was
fine -- crunchy on the outside, somewhat soggy on the inside with none of the
fat trimmed away.Better bacon/hot dog
taste delineation would've saved this from a subpar rating. And, it was screaming
for something sweet (a squeeze of maple syrup?) to cut the saltiness. Next
year, I'll bring my own Mrs. Buttersworth, yo. Grade: 2

Deep-Fried Chili Asteroids -- For
those of you who don't know, the theme of this year's San Diego Fair is/was
outer space.That doesn't excuse this
unfortunately-named appetizer/punch line, even if the description sounded
absolutely divine:

Award-winning homemade chili and cheese,
deep-fried in a hushpuppy batter.

Admittedly, my standards are high.Mrs. Bootleg makes an amazing chili that's
the perfect autumnal accompaniment when the November thermostat sinks to 66
degrees and we briefly consider closing the living room window.My hushpuppy expectations are equally lofty
as I once knew a guy who worked at Long John Silver's.

Predictably, there's more hushpuppy here than chili as I
assume the extra batter was needed to contain a food usually found in a
bowl.The chili was a bland mix of
ground beef, beans, chili powder, cumin and whatever else Homer Simpson sniffed in the air 15 years ago.I really liked the hushpuppy crust, though,
as its cornmeal origins were a natural accompaniment for the chili.However, the side of nacho cheese dippin'
sauce was ultimately superfluous as it suffocated the other flavors and
textures.

This was the perfect mishmash of "awesome" and
"meh", so we'll grade it accordingly.Grade: 2.5

Sweet Potato Tater Tots -- At this
point, panic is starting to set in.We're halfway through the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything that I'd
score better than average.And,
considering my previous experiences with sweet potato fries, this would be the
proverbial roll of the dice.When done
right -- thin-cut and crispy -- sweet potato fries can be fantastic.But, too many establishments serve them up as
thick-cut sponges that retain a quart of grease apiece.

The sweet potato tater tots were
almost executed perfectly.The exterior was light and crisp -- almost potato chip-like -- while the
interior was texturally fantastic.The
heavy, fibrous characteristics inherent within Thanksgiving's favorite root
tuber were nowhere to be found.In its
place was a mildly sweet airiness that bordered on addicting.

Oh, but the execution.The tater tots desperately needed salt.Not a lot, but singular shot from the shaker
-- two, tops -- would've elevated the flavors.And, much to my surprise, the tots weren't served with any sort of
dipping sauce.I've been spoiled by the
creamy pumpkin-spiced sauce that several places serve, so I'd have settled for
something simple and citrusy. Not even one lonely lemon wedge?My, what could've been.Grade: 3.5

Fried Pineapple -- Both the sun and my
stomach were starting to set and I was unsure if I'd ever find the one annual menu
item that would knock my socks off.Every
year something edible earns one of my exaggerated "500
(out of 5)" scores.Could last
year's maple bacon donut EVER be toppled from its sticky, porcine pedestal?It's up to you, inexplicably fried Hawaiian
fruit.

By themselves, pineapples are in my pantheon of favorite
fruits.And, the fried pineapples were
certainly the most visually appealing meal I ate all day.Perfect golden-brown rings lightly topped with
a bittersweet chocolate sauce and a pinch of powdered sugar.It took a few bites for me to adjust to the
crispiness, but the pineapple's natural flavors were mostly unchanged.

If anything, the heat from the grease muted the pineapple's
already mellow notes.It also led to the
evaporation of some of the fruit's juiciness.In simplest terms, this was really a pineapple upside down cake turned
inside out.In my terms?Dee-LISH!Grade: 4

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Peppers -- These
were referred to as "Porky Poppers" on the menu, but I'm proud to
report I kept my dignity and ordered using their literal description.That same dignity was temporarily misplaced
when I popped one of the porkies, whole, in my mouth.See that toothpick-looking thing running
perpendicular to each jalapeño pepper?Turns out it's an actual toothpick.And, when mindlessly munched on, they're more abrasive on the inside of
your mouth than a bowl of Quizno's-cooked Cap'n Crunch.

I appreciated the use of fresh jalapeños.They're hotter and more flavorful than the
pickled imposters found on ballpark nachos.The bacon was bountiful and the peppers were stuffed with gouda.Unfortunately, the sweetness of the gouda was
mostly smothered from the saltiness of the bacon and the spiciness of the
peppers.Given a choice between two of
the three flavors coming through, I'd have preferred "sweet" and
"salty" or "sweet" and "spicy".The "salty" and "spicy"
territory is already well-trodden convenience store turf.Grade: 2

9 comments:

Yeah, nothing this year "wow'ed" me. Actually "The Big Rib" was pretty good. It was nearly 2 pounds of meat on a giant bone. I couldn't find that bacon-wrapped dog. I agreed about the PB&J. The deep-fried Cinnamon Toast Crunch was also disappointing. The Frog legs were actually pretty good.

I'm sorry you didn't have a 500-out-of-5 moment this year, but I was *so* excited to see this post up. (In fact, I was thinking the other day that it was about that time of year!)

As far as improving the jalapeno poppers, I reckon you could do a nice version yourself on the grill. A friend in Sydney used to move us all to tears with her grilled banana peppers stuffed with feta - the grilling gives the peppers a bit of that roasted-pepper sweetness. If you used a nice applewood/maple bacon, that would enhance the contrast. You could even puree a touch of fig or something similar with the feta for a bit more distinction.

@Sam -- There's also an aspect of mouthfeel. I need the extra jelly to make the peanut butter palatable. I tried to finish one of J's peanut butter (only) sandwiches awhile back and -- almost literally -- barely choked it down.

@Lew -- I was concerned that the fried cereal wouldn't work and I *love* Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Haven't had much success with fried sweets (Oreos/Twinkies/Klondike Bars). Lots of folks told me I should've found the red velvet funnel cake. I saw it and passed. Now, regret it.

@JP -- Thanks! I'm planning to give the grilled peppers a shot after Jalen and I get back from San Francisco. As for recent pairings, I've been sipping Stone's vanilla bean smoked porter while eating candied nuts. Glorious.

@Carrie -- It occurs to me that my peanut butter bias might come from Jalen eating them with a gallon-of-milk chaser and all while chewing with his mouth open. It's...a disturbing sight.

I feel you on the effect that kids can have on your food choices: I worked in a daycare a long time ago and once had a one-year-old sneeze spaghetti all over me. As in, spaghetti strands coming out her nose. From a meal she'd had *two hours previously*, with only a nap in between. It took me a while to shake that one off, let me tell you.

Keep us posted on the beer pairing for the peppers, hey? I have a housewarming coming up and that might be a nice little treat for us all.